Chemistry Professor Secures NSF Grant to Develop Single-cell Ablation Instrument to Better Detect Cancer Cells

A LSU scientist could be on the cusp of developing the latest innovation to better detect and analyze cancerous cells. Chemistry Professor Kermit Murray and his research group have been awarded nearly $300,000 from the National Science Foundation to develop the latest in single-cell ablation instrumentation technology.

The grant money will be used to help develop an instrument for sampling genomic material from single cells, specifically for DNA sequencing. The laser ablation technique is a new way of looking at DNA material.

“Not all cells are the same” said Murray. Murray’s efforts to develop instrumentation for localized sampling could help pinpoint where the healthy tissue in a tumor begins and ends, ultimately creating a more targeted cancer treatment that hones in on cancerous cells without harming healthy ones.

The key to laser ablation technology is using a great amount of force from the laser to remove chunks of material without completely destroying the molecules.

 Murray has been working with an atomic force microscope, a high-resolution type of scanning probe microscope, to do laser ablation on a small scale. While using the atomic force microscope Murray has to implement a feedback system to know how close he’s getting to the surface of the tissue containing the DNA strand.

Murray and his team want to get as close as they can when they ablate material to ensure maximum precision and to be careful to not fragment the delicate DNA strands.

The anticipated outcome is a prototype that can spatially resolve materials and collect genomic data.

Murray has also worked with Anasys Instruments in Santa Barbara, a company specializing in nanoscale analysis and notes that a number of LSU scientists from different departments also do work on single cell research.

Some of the other LSU professors working on single cell research are Daniel Hayes from Biological and Agriculture engineering, Adam Melvin from chemical engineering, and Ryoichi Teruyama and J. Cameron Thrash from biological sciences.

Murray does, however credit a lot of research to his team. He currently has one graduate student Fan Cao and one post-doc Fabrizio Donnarumma, working with him.

“They’re the ones actually doing the work. They set the stuff up, and do the experiments,” said Murray.

His team specifically works with the LSU Vet School to obtain rat brain for experimentation. All of the genome and DNA work is done using rat brain tissue.

With Murray’s growing research, he working to secure patents to protect his findings.

“We’ve got a patent application and that includes the protein ablation, but there’s also an application for the DNA ablation,” said Murray. “When we talk about intellectual property, we want to make sure we lock-up all of our intellectual property and from what I understand we’re in pretty great shape.”

Murray believes that the key to securing a successful grant from organizations like NSF, requires the collaboration of many types of researchers working together to reach an end goal.

“It requires bringing in people from the Vet School and the Med School,” said Murray. “You really can’t get primary investigative grants by yourself, only the best can. The rest of us have to build teams and we need talent from every area.”

The saying team work makes the dream work, proves to be true with regards to Murray’s genomic research efforts.

“If you just build an instrument on your own, you might think it’s cool or fun, but if you don’t keep your eye on applications, you can sometimes go down a road that’s fundamentally interesting but doesn’t have the impact.”

Murray hopes to build another instrument that will offer another way to ablate spatially resolved material. With the help the NSF grant, he and his team are taking the necessary steps to achieve their goal and contribute to the single cell research world.

To keep up the latest on Murray’s work, follow his research group on Twitter, Pinterest, and YouTube. More information can be found at singlecell.lsu.edu.